PREFACE.
You never read prefaces, you say. Pray
oblige me by giving this a slight perusal;
it will not detain you long.
The present work made its appearance
about eight years since, in the Boston
Weekly Magazine; but it was written
at snatches of time, and under the pressure
of much care and business incident
to my profession; consequently was in a
degree incorrect. It has now gone through
a revision, and is offered to the public as
an example of how much the human mind
can bear, when supported by conscious
rectitude, and whose every impulse is conformable
to the strictest integrity and a
love of truth. It may be objected that
the example will lose its effect, as my heroine
is not in the end rewarded for her
exemplary patience, virtue, and forbearance:
But it was because I wished to
avoid every unnatural appearance, that I
left Sarah to meet her reward in a better
world. Characters of superlative excellence,
tried in the furnace of affliction,
and at length crowned by wealth, honor,
love, friendship, every sublunary good,
are to be found abundantly in every novel,
but alas! where shall we find them in
real life? Such examples therefore, instead
of stimulating the young or inexperienced
mind to emulate the virtues represented,
misleads it by fallacious hopes
and expectations which can never be realized;
disappointed in the anticipated
temporal felicity, where it is discovered
that virtue and integrity may be overlooked
by the thoughtless and unfeeling;
or left to pine in obscurity by the worldly
wise, and ostentatiously prudent; it slackens
in its endeavour, and concludes the
existence of the character portrayed to
be as chimerical as the happiness represented
as its reward.
It may be inquired, “Do I then deny
the existence of friendship, generosity,
compassion, and that first of Christian
virtues, Charity?” Oh no! I should be
the most ungrateful of human beings if I
did; many have been the instances which
I have witnessed of this reality, which,
like roses scattered in a wilderness, perfumed
and sweetened the journey of life;
but in that journcy I have also encountered
many a thorn, and many a flint, that
have lacerated my feelings to the very
quick.
Sarah is not a faultless monster; she
comes as near perfection as is the lot of
humanity; but she was eredulous, impetuous,
and apt to decide with too much
precipitation. Yet under all her misfortunes
she is represented as drawing comfort
and consolation from a source that is
never fallacious, can never be exhausted.
She looks up to her heavenly Father with
love and confidence, she endeavours to
make his laws the rule of her actions,
and trusts in his promises for her reward.
Who of common reflection but would prefer
the death of Sarah, resigned as she
was, and upheld by faith and hope, to all
the splendors, wealth and honors that
were ever heaped upon the heroine in the
last pages of a novel? Here let the young
voyagers, just entering on the turbulent
ocean of life, fix their eyes, and they will
find a comforter in disappointment, a support
in the heaviest calamity, a safe and
sure passport to eternal peace.
Many of the scenes delineated in the
following work are drawn from real life;
some of them have occurred within my own
knowledge; but it was in another hemisphere,
and the characters no longer exist.
Darnley was a profligate; his crime
became his punishment; for surely no
life can be pictured so completely wretched
as where two persons, knowing from
experience the turpitude of each other's
heart, are obliged to wear out the last
remnant of existence together, in mutual
jealousy, hatred and recrimination.
Beware, ye lovely maidens who are now
fluttering on the wing of youth and pleasure,
how you select a partner for life.
Purity of morals and manners in a husband,
is absolutely necessary to the happiness
of a delicate and virtuous woman.
When once the choice is made and fixed
beyond revocation, remember patience,
forbearance, and in many cases perfect
silence, is the only way to secure domestic
peace. What, in all marriages? asks
some young friend. Why, in truth, there
is seldom any so perfectly felicitous, but
that instances may occur where patience,
forbearance, and silence, may be practised
with good effect.
